There are those who chronically misunderstand the Church because they
are busy trying to explain the Church from the outside. They are so busy
believing what they want to believe about the Church that they will not
take the time to learn what they need to learn about the Church. They
prefer any explanation to the real explanation. Some prefer to believe
the worst rather than to know the truth.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Some insist upon studying the Church only through the eyes of its
defectors—like interviewing Judas to understand Jesus. Defectors always
tell us more about themselves than about that from which they have
departed.

In 1 Esdras 3-4, Darius who had been eating and drinking, sets up a contest of rhetoricians:

Each of us will present an argument about what is most compelling, and the one whose account appears the wisest, Darius will give him a great gift (1 Esdras 3:5)

The whole trope of a rhetorical contest has deep roots in ancient Mesopotamia, being a popular genre for both Sumerian and Akkadian rhetors, but it is most known from Greek and Roman uses and abuses. The contest in Esdras seems to owe more to the Greco-Roman style contests.

The first rhetor insists that the most powerful influence over men is wine (1 Esdras 3:17-24). His arguments sound like a advertisement for the Word of Wisdom:

All men who drink it err in judgment (1 Esdras 3:18).

And when he wakes from wine, he cannot remember anything he has done (1 Esdras 3:23).

The second rhetor argues that the most powerful influence over men is the king (1 Esdras 4:1-12). After all, whatever he commands just or unjust is done.

The third rhetor argues that the most powerful influence over men is women (1 Esdras 4:13-32). For those who think that the ancient world was filled with misogynist brutes, This passage is well worth the read.

Zerubbabel argues that the most powerful influence over men is the truth (1 Esdras 4:34-41). His argument is that:

Wine is unjust; kings are unjust; women are unjust; all the children of men are unjust; and all their works are unjust; such are all things. But the truth is not among them, and they are destroyed in their iniquity (1 Esdras 4:37).

(The Greek uses the same term for both iniquity and unjust.)

Zerubbabel wins the contest. His gift for winning is to be transferred to Coile-Syria and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

The choice of things that influence men is interesting: wine, women, rulers, and truth. Darius is depicted as an idealist because truth probably has the least actual practical influence in human affairs.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Professor Barry Kemp of Cambridge is an Egyptian
archaeologist whose published views are usually thought provoking. In one of
his books he wrote:

“’Great culture’, which in times becomes tourist culture,
was not the spontaneous creation of the common man. It is no accident that we
meet its manifestations in large religious buildings, in palaces, mansions, and
castles. Great culture, which requires patronage and the direction of labour,
originates in courts. The wealth, size, splendour, craft standards, and
intellectual novelties are part of the instruments of the rule. When well
established, a great tradition may have an influence which is felt throughout
society. But to reach this stage it has to expand at the expense of other
traditions. It has to colonize the minds of the nation.”[1]

Such a statement makes the thoughtful reader of the Book of
Mormon wonder if great and spacious buildings (1 Nephi 8:26, 31, 33; 11:35-36;
12:18) really equate with great culture. Interestingly, this quote is at the
beginning of a chapter in which Professor Kemp shows how many of the Egyptian
temples did not start out as great and spacious buildings.

Ancient Egypt produced great and spacious buildings,
beautiful artwork, and an intriguingly picturesque script. By contrast, ancient
Israel produced utilitarian buildings, crude artwork, and a scratchy script. But
ancient Israel also produced the Bible, a work whose literary history has far
outlasted anything any ancient Egyptian ever wrote. The ancient Maya too
produced great and spacious buildings, beautiful artwork, and an intriguingly
picturesque script. The Nephites, on the other hand, may not have had much of
these things but they produced the Book of Mormon.

The three mentions of a lavish building project from the
Book of Mormon are undertaken by king Noah who “built many elegant and spacious
buildings” (Mosiah 11:8-13) and Riplakish who “did build many spacious buildings”
(Ether 10:5-6) and Morianton who was rich “both in buildings, and in gold and
silver” (Ether 10:12). All of these kings are depicted as wicked. From a Book
of Mormon point of view great and spacious buildings are not signs of
righteousness.

Lies are wearying: "She hath wearied herself with lies. . . ." (Ezekiel 24:12.) So are the exacting mental computations that go with dissembling and the extra efforts required in the shading of the truth.

Friday, December 28, 2012

It should not puzzle us, if we have studied scriptural history
carefully—including what happened to the Savior—that defectors often
cause more difficulty than disinterested disbelievers. It should not
surprise us either, as Peter observed of those drawn away by false
accusers, that it will be they and their followers "by reason of whom
the way of truth shall be evil spoken of" (2 Peter 2:2).

A conversation I was having the other day turned to the subject of excommunication. Such is not necessarily the most pleasant of topics. There are some who think that excommunication is a terrible thing.

The Church of Jesus Christ is an organization of those who have made certain covenants with God. Those who have made the covenant of baptism are members of the Church. The covenant is voluntary. We do not baptize infants or those who are not judged to have the intellectual capacity to enter the covenant. Of course, since none of us can see the future, we do not have a full understanding of what the covenant we enter into entails when we enter into it. But when we enter school we also do not have a full understanding of what that will entail either. Those of us who have entered the covenant have an obligation to keep the covenant that we have made.

The Church would rather have everyone who enters the covenant keep the covenant that they made with God. Not everyone who has entered the covenant keeps the covenant. The Church then has to decide what to do with those who have broken their covenant. Excommunication is simply an acknowledgement by the Church that an individual has left their covenant and so the Church releases them from being bound by the covenant that they have already abandoned.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Adi ibn Hamid ibn Zakariyya
al-Tikriti al-Mantiqi is an author who has not made the best seller list for a
millennium. Born in A.D. 893, Yahya was an influential scribe and scholar in
Baghdad in the mid-940s who attracted both Christian and Muslim disciples. A
dual language edition of his work, The
Reformation of Morals is available.[1]
This is a remarkable work that deserves to be better known.

While today it is popular to claim that one cannot or should
not change because one is born that way, Yahya ibn Adi argues that individuals
can and should change their behavior to have better morals. Yahya’s comments
compare interestingly with those of two Book of Mormon kings: Benjamin and
Mosiah.

Yahya argues that “people are disposed to bad morals,
inclined to yield to base desires.”[2]
“There are some people who take no notice of the matter; but when they are put
to notice, they perceive the foulness, and so sometimes their soul brings them
to renunciation.”[3] King
Benjamin was more emphatic: “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been
from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the
enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a
saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child,
submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all
things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth
submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19‎).

Yahya also argues for the flip-side of something that King
Mosiah argued. King Mosiah argued that: “how much iniquity doth one wicked king
cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction! Yea, remember king
Noah, his wickedness and his abominations, and also the wickedness and
abominations of his people. Behold what great destruction did come upon them;
and also because of their iniquities they were brought into bondage.” (Mosiah
29:17–18‎). Yahya
argues that “the advantage of kings of good conduct is immense. They will
dissuade the wrongdoer from his wrong, they will hold back the angry man from
his anger, they will punish the immoral man for his immorality, and they will restrain
the tyrant to the point that he reverts to moderation in all his affairs.”[4]

Because we all need repentance and improvement,
Yahya ibn Adi’s work, The Reformation of
Morals, is as relevant now as it was a millennium ago.

Can we excuse our compromises because of the powerful temptations of
status seeking? It was He who displayed incredible integrity as the
adversary made Him an offer which could not be refused—“all the kingdoms
of the world, and the glory of them.” (Matt. 4:8.) But He refused!

The ancient Egyptians did not have Christmas but they did have a festival at this time of year that lasted most of the month. It was called the Khoiak festival. It coincided with both the winter solstice and the end of the inundation of the Nile and beginning of planting season. It celebrated the death of Osiris and the birth of Horus. For Egyptian Christians it commemorated the death of Abraham and the birth of Jesus.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Therefore, in
addition to my boundless admiration of His achievements and my adoration
of Jesus for what He is—knowing that my superlatives are too shallow to
do more than echo his excellence—as one of His Special Witnesses in the
fulness of times, I attest to the fulness of His ministry!

How dare some
treat His ministry as if it were all beatitudes and no declaratives!
How myopic it is to view His ministry as all crucifixion and no resurrection!
How provincial to perceive it as all Calvary and no Palmyra! All
rejection at a village called Capernaum and no acceptance in the City of
Enoch! All relapse and regression in ancient Israel and no Bountiful
with its ensuing decades of righteousness!

Jesus Christ
is the Jehovah of the Red Sea and of Sinai, the Resurrected Lord, the
Spokesman for the Father in the theophany at Palmyra—a Palmyra pageant
with a precious audience of one!

He lives
today, mercifully granting unto all nations as much light as they can
bear and messengers of their own to teach them. (See Alma 29:8.)
And who better than the Light of the World can decide the degree of
divine disclosure—whether it is to be flashlights or floodlights?

Monday, December 24, 2012

Even as
believers, however, when we are a part of encapsulating events, we can
scarcely savor all that swirls about us. It is unlikely, for instance,
on that night so long ago in Bethlehem,
that Joseph and Mary looked at the newly born Christ child’s feet with
the realization that those feet would, one day, walk the length and
breadth of the Holy Land. And, further, that, later on, spikes would
pierce those feet.

As a loving
Mary grasped those tiny hands, and, as in the months ahead those tiny
hands clasped her, did she know that those hands, when grown, would
ordain the original Twelve or, still later, carry the rough-hewn cross?

As she heard
her Baby cry, did she hear intimations of Jesus’ later weeping at the
death of Lazarus or after blessing the Nephite children? (See John 11:35; 3 Ne. 17:21–22.)
Did she foresee that those baby-soft knees would later be hardened by
so much prayer, including those glorious but awful hours in Gethsemane?
(See Matt. 26:36–56.)

As she bathed
that Babe so many times to cleanse His pores, could she have been
expected to foresee that one day, years later, drops of blood would come
from His every pore? (See Mosiah 3:7.)

There is such a
thing as cheerful, believing participation—even without full
understanding—when you and I keep certain things in our hearts and are
nourished as we ponder them! (See Luke 2:19.)

Sunday, December 23, 2012

One of the opening proverbs of Onchsheshonqy provides an interesting juxtaposition:

P. Onchsheshonqy 5/11

If Pre is wroth with a district he commands its ruler to do evil to its people (P. Onch. 5/11).

This shift of blame is interesting in light of the frame story of the text. In the frame story, a man seeks to shift responsibility for his actions onto the god. The Pharaoh's response to that is to have the man burned alive. The moral of the frame story is that individuals need to take responsibility for their own actions and not try to shift the blame for their bad behavior on the god. Yet here, the ruler is absolved of his bad behavior in precisely the same way. I noted before that in ancient Egypt criticism of one's leaders was not allowed under penalty of death. Onchsheshonqy phrases his critique in such a way to make it look like the ruler is off the hook but it still means that the god is angry with the district.

While the causation is not what we expect, the correlation is. Onchsheshonqy notes that rulers mistreating the people and the wrath of the god go together.